Sharjah Power Failure Frustrates Residents

Residents and commercial business owners said they had witnessed failure in power supply up to four times a day during the weekend.

Riaz, a resident of Industrial Area No 1, said power supply had barely been on for three hours in recent days. “The power does not last three hours. So far I have already spent more than Dh2,400 staying in hotels,” he said.

“We are really very frustrated and losing our stamina socially, economically and spiritually; may Allah take us out of this crisis and give us the opportunity to practice our religion in this holy month of Ramadan.”

Rasheeda Harris, a resident of Industrial Area No 17 of Maliaha Road, said that the power went off twice on Friday; on Saturday, it went off for one hour and again at 8pm and was only restored at midnight. On Sunday, she said, the power went off at 2.30pm and had not been restored until 4pm, when she spoke to Khaleej Times.

“I threw away a lot of food, which had got spoiled, and my two kids can’t sleep due to the heat. We even had to have Iftar in the dark. It has been frustrating for us and we don’t know what to do. We hope SEWA officials consider our situation.”

Mubarak Fazil, supermarket owner at Sharjah Industrial Area 13, said that they served customers by candle light and had suffered Dh50,000 losses from food that spoiled when the refrigeration systems broke down.

“I have decided to buy a generator for back-up to reduce my loss,” Fazil said.

A Sharjah Electricity and Water official, who asked not to be named, said the authority understood people’s suffering and engineers were working round-the-clock to fix the problem.

“There is huge default in the power production main plant and more than 50 engineers are working to solve the problem, which has been solved by 90 per cent,” the official said, adding, SEWA had given priority of restoring power to residential areas such as Abu Shagara and Al Nahda, and then to industrial and commercial areas.

Engineers were providing comprehensive maintenance services to broken units and changing spare parts and cables to ensure that it would not break again due to heavy load 
and consumption.

He urged the public to be patient and apologised for the inconvenience caused to residents of industrial areas. “We hope the power problem would be solved with next 48 hours,” he said.